“Deepfakes, false video reports, false newspaper front pages”: Gabriel Attal, candidate for the 2027 presidential election and boss of the Renaissance party, filed a complaint for “foreign interference” “originating from Russian networks”.
After a first report on Wednesday “for external digital interference” and “coming from Russia”, the State services “informed” Friday Gabriel Attal of a “new interference operation” Thursday, “again coming from Russian networks”, explain his lawyers Mes Sacha Ghozlan and Lucas Veil in a press release sent to AFP. The complaint, filed in Paris on Friday evening and of which AFP was informed, denounces “acts of foreign interference, manipulation of information, production of rigged content, likely to harm the fundamental interests of the nation and the sincerity of the upcoming presidential election”.
The former Prime Minister’s lawyers have listed “deepfakes, false video reports, false newspaper headlines” on networks and platforms. And also elements supposed to “sow confusion about the origin of deepfakes”, by pointing out Gabriel Attal to make people believe that he had “himself orchestrated the disinformation which targets him”.
“Our client was alerted by the SGDSN (General Secretariat of Defense and National Security), and more particularly by the Viginum service, responsible for vigilance and protection against foreign digital interference, of the existence of disinformation campaigns targeting him,” the candidate’s advice specifies.
“Discredit him”
“Several
“If we do nothing to protect ourselves, the election could be distorted,” Gabriel Attal worried on RTL on Thursday, accusing “Russia of wanting to steal” this vote from the French.
A series of destabilization operations, attributed to pro-Russian networks, targeted three declared or anticipated presidential candidates in a few days. Edouard Philippe (Horizons) was slandered about his state of health, Raphaël Glucksmann (Place Publique) through his partner, the journalist Léa Salamé, accused of having bribed the media to promote her husband’s candidacy and Gabriel Attal was notably presented as potentially suffering from Parkinson’s disease.
Even if these operations remained barely visible according to a security source, they are the first aimed directly since the start of the campaign of the contenders for the Elysée. An investigation has been opened by the courts into the alleged disinformation campaign targeting Raphaël Glucksmann.
“Open bar for manipulators”
Wednesday evening, Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu reacted by recalling that the government had presented a bill to the Council of Ministers at the end of July toughening the penalties incurred in the event of the dissemination of false information.
Thursday evening, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, leader of LFI, deplored that the French presidential election was “open bar for all the manipulators of the world”. Candidates from La France insoumise in the last municipal elections, this time in Marseille, Toulouse and Roubaix, had been targeted, with suspicion pointing towards an Israeli company. “The investigation into the suspicion of interference to the detriment of various candidates in the municipal elections is still ongoing, with no new information communicable at this stage,” the Paris prosecutor’s office told AFP on this subject on Thursday.
Part of the left believes that the government is not going far enough and wants to reach foreign platforms like TikTok or
The boss of the Ecologists Marine Tondelier goes even further by proposing, in Libération, to suspend networks like A proposal which led to her being accused by the boss of
